Mercenary medics

[Hakkonen]

One of my first ideas on learning that the Mercenaries expansion would include support for specialist units, was a mercenary field hospital: a unit that specializes in providing medical support to other forces, national or mercenary. Given the importance of effective medical care to military operations, I'm more than a little disappointed to learn that the Specialist Forces book makes no mention of such units.

Are there any particular considerations when creating a unit of this type, or is it simply a matter of equipping them with several field medical units from the Mercenary Field Catalog, along with individual medical supplies from the CSC?

 

[Condottiere]

1. Going by real world examples, it usually depends on the size and expected casualties of the forces involved.

2. Small elite forces probably will want cross trained individuals, so that any casualty won't remove capabilities.

3. At the other end of the spectrum, indigenous forces led by mercenary cadres could have non combat medical, uh, specialists, accompany formations.

4. Medical evacuation and treatment facilities will tend to depend on what can be imported and/or local infrastructure; in other words, if it's feasible to evacuate wounded by helicopters, they will be, and it allows treatment facilities to be located further back from the frontline.

5. The number of treatment facilities is likely dependent on expected casualties and on resources available.

6. Usually, you have a medic for every full squad or platoon, add stretcher bearers and ambulance drivers, collection point whether at the company or battalion level with one or more doctors and assistants, I think divisional it's a MASH unit.

7. With Traveller technology, you could just freeze the badly wounded, and evacuate to a fully equipped hospital; triage now suddenly more complicated, as survival will be dependent on cryogenic facilities as well, and whose skill sets you might want to preserve.

 

[ottarrus]

In a Traveller OTU setting, there are a lot of variables that tend to militate against as specific mercenary field hospital.
Just a few off the top of my head:

- Some cultures /religions don't respect medical aid as inviolate in warfare. Examples are as variable as Vargr corsairs, Aslan conducting Open War ['war with no rules'] and the entire Vilani way of military thinking.
--- This means that a mercenary hospital will require a substantial 'teeth' detachment to protect the hospital grounds from all threat vectors [conventional, NBC, etc.].
- Most governments have sufficient medical capacity for limited warfare, so they tend to hire striker battalions, commando units, or cadre to get the literal 'most bang out of its credits'.
- Would the merc hospital unit conduct CASVAC or just establish a hospital safe zone?

Now, NONE of this says that a mercenary hospital or combat medic unit isn't possible. GT: Star Mercs and GT: Ground Forces have some very interesting units that aren't your run of the mill 'wreck a world for pay' a' la 'Hammer's Slammers'. But the unit would have to be more thought out and its mission more detailed than your average striker company.